Windows Performance Counters

Creating a new Windows Performance Counter

Prerequisites for monitoring Windows Performance Counters: Click here

To create Windows Performance Counters in Applications Manager, follow the steps given below:

1. Select New Monitor and choose Windows Performance Counters.
2. Provide a Name for the Windows Performance Counter.
3. Enter the Description for the counter.
4. Enter the Polling Interval for the counter.
5. If you are adding a new monitor from an Central Server, select a Probe Server.
6. Select the Host Name from the combo box or you can create a new host (by giving the new host name / IP address, username and password of the host)

Applications Manager uses WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) to monitor Windows Performance Counters. WMI provides preinstalled performance counter classes, where each class corresponds to an object in the Windows performance libraries.

For example, the object NetworkInterface in the Perfmon System Monitor is represented in WMI by:

• Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_NetworkInterface for raw data.
• Win32_PerfFormattedData_Tcpip_NetworkInterface for pre-calculated (or "cooked") data.

Note: Applications Manager currently supports monitoring the counters of classes derived from Win32_PerfFormattedData.

Common WMI Performance Classes

Below are some commonly used WMI performance classes for objects present in Perfmon:

• Processor: Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Processor
• Browser: Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfNet_Browser
• PagingFile: Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_PagingFile
• Memory: Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfOS_Memory
• Server: Win32_PerfFormattedData_PerfNet_Server

Note: Some classes, such as Singleton Classes, can only have one instance.

WMI Monitor Details

After creating Windows Performance Counters in Applications Manager, the WMI Monitor Details Page provides the following information:

• Availability Tab: Displays the availability history for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
• Performance Tab: Shows the Health Status and Events for the past 24 hours or 30 days.
• List View: Allows bulk administrative configurations for multiple monitors.
• Individual Monitor View: Displays detailed performance counter values. It supports counter values as attributes and configuration of thresholds.

Adding Attributes

To monitor specific attributes from WMI Performance Classes in Applications Manager, follow these steps:

• Click on Add Attributes link.
• From the list of WMI Performance Classes, choose the classes whose attributes you want to monitor .
• Upon clicking Show Attributes, the list of WMI classes selected along with their attributes and instances will be displayed. Select the attributes and instances to be added for monitoring.
• You can configure thresholds and alarms for the selected attributes to trigger alerts when performance deviates. At the class level, you can configure alarms for Health, which is determined by the attributes that make up the class.